Michael Hackett

My dad was raised on a series of Depression era tenant farms in the rural south and spent most of his pre-war years working his tail off as one of eight kids, trying to eke out a life. Many years later, as a skilled craftsman, he retired as the Maintenance Foreman of a large, family-owned agricultural business. I remember him telling me that "There's never been any bad lovin', or any good work on the end of a hoe." It might have been tough living in Hokkaido, but O Sensei never picked cotton in the Mississippi Delta.